Navajo weaving

      This is a Navajo piece dated c. 1900.  The outer edges are comprised of a wide background/border that is a yellow-orange hue with slight variations throughout. Within this border there is a frame the sides of which are formed of red and white right triangles. The triangles at the top of each side face outward (six on the left side, four on the right) while the remainder face inward toward the center. The upper edge of the frame consists of a horizontal red line with four white isosceles triangles suspended as pendants from it. They each have a thin red border. At the lower edge, the four triangles are repeated rising from vertical red stems but lacking the horizontal red line. Also at the top and bottom of the piece, within the confines of the red frame, are six black geometric shapes. Each contains a smaller geometric red figure that resembles a bird in flight. Between these shapes and the central area of the piece are four clusters of three triangles, two at the top and two at the bottom. The triangles alternate between blue-gray and red, while an additional three inverted red triangles appear to balance on the uppermost point of the black figures along the top. Finally, a black zigzag line rises from either end of the upper row of black shapes. 

At the center of the piece, a woman is prominently depicted. She is surrounded by a rose-red field that interlocks with the inner edges of the background.  Her body is facing forward with her head turned to the viewer’s left. She is wearing a long-sleeved top the same yellow-orange tint as the background.  Her top has a v-shaped embellishment at the neckline consisting of one red and one pink stripe and there are bands of white along the edge of each sleeve. She is also wearing an A-line skirt of variegated blues and grays, a wide red belt with two white hexagonal ornaments at the front and what appears to be white leggings. Her arms are outstretched and bent at the elbow with her palms facing upward. Between her upraised hands a vine consisting of a blue-gray stem and leaves placed evenly in pairs along it forms an arch above the woman’s head. At her right side there is a gray coffee pot.

Finally, along both of the side of the piece thare are three rows of rather irregularly formed black and gray block letters spelling what appears to be “baking powder”, “rolled oats”, “banner”, “lute” and “pure”. They bracket the woman’s figure while calling attention to some of the ingredients a woman of the time was likely to use in her daily cooking and baking. The artwork within the piece combined with these words running along the border make it appear to be a woven adaptation of the embroidered and cross-stitched samplers that were a popular means for needle crafters to exhibit their skills and ingenuity during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

Unfortunately, in addition to their irregularity, some of the letters, particularly those that spell “banner” along the left edge, run as a mirror image of the same word on the right edge resulting in the word reading from right to left rather than left to right. Such an error is most likely the result of miscalculations during the design planning. Unlike the young girls and women of the era who could hold their embroidery stretched across a hoop in front of them scrutinizing and easily correcting their designs as they worked, it was necessary for a weaver to develop his or her design as a quasi-mathematical plan before the warp threads were even strung on the loom. Because of the manner in which a woven piece develops, the consequences of the design plan are much more difficult to discern and/or correct during its execution than an embroidered piece.  But ultimately in the case of this unique and ambitious piece, it serves as both as an homage to females’ culinary labors and, because of its endearing imperfections, as a visible testament to the complexities of the weaver’s craft.